High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Curtiss C-46 Commando was a transport aircraft originally derived from a commercial high-altitude airliner design. It was instead used as a military transport during World War II by the United States Army Air Forces as well as the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps under the designation R5C. Known to the men who flew them as "The Whale," or the "Curtiss Calamity," the C-46 served a similar role as its counterpart, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain, but was not as extensively produced.